Gratitude

Recently, I failed to survive my probation as a new hire at Metro Transit here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. I felt just terrible in the aftermath. My prospects were good when I took this position as I'd a reasonable amount of success previously driving school bus and then metro mobility buses.

My training at Metro Transit was thorough. When I passed my initial written tests and road test, I felt confident as I soloed on city streets doing route work in the morning and evening rush hours along Interstate 394 and Washington and University Avenues of Minneapolis and St. Paul. In the morning, the bus with slight exception was forty foot Gillig bus while in the afternoon it would be a much longer articulated bus. The articulated bus (looks like an accordion between front and rear sections) was especially snakelike to drive while the forty footer was like a big bread box.

As events unfolded, the split shift work proved my undoing. There was something like seven hours between shifts. When I came in the door at night, I'd have to be to bed by 9 P.M. and up by about 4:30 AM.

The first warning sign I had was the week after Memorial Day weekend, a three day weekend for me. I fell asleep in the evening on the couch without going to bed one of those nights. The dispatcher awakened me in the morning when I failed to report for duty on time. I was punished with loss of wages but it was clear I'd given my employer a dagger to hang over my head. As a probationary employee, the employer needed no reason to terminate my employment and the union which collected initiation fees and monthly dues had no legal response within its agreement were I to be terminated from employment.

About two months later, the second event was a pull-out accident from a bus stop. A single car cut-out in the sidewalk for commercial vehicles alongside of the bus stop presented no risk if I pulled out my vehicle my moving forward on the street with a gradual lane change if needed. However, the bus ahead of me deployed its wheel chair ramp and I made a sharp turn into the driving lane to my right. This caused my bus to invade the space occupied by a parked vehicle. I did not know I had struck this vehicle, but subsequently I had to admit that I did not look to see in my right hand mirror that I was clearing the vehicle parked in the cut out. As a professional driver, I was not allowed any excuse for my mistake (which I accept). I had been educated by all of my previous employers about tailswing on buses (especially school buses).

In the week following the accident, I fell asleep a second time without setting the alarm clocks (after the first incident I'd bought a second alarm clock and would set both of them). The decision of management was to terminate my employment with this latest infraction.

Of course I felt devastated. Fortunate for me, I behaved honorably in taking responsibility for both my accident damaging another's property and my failure to report to work on time on two different occasions.

I had feelings about the way I'd been treated. I was treated harshly by a system which believes elimination of probationary employees sets the standard for what comes after probation. Of course this is not true. The treatment of non-probationary employees provides for remediation by the union and management for the same errors I'd made (not termination). I know I felt shame at my personal failure as I have a strong work ethic and the last thing I'd wanted to do was to fail at making my job change a success. My employer's consequence is it lost a professional and professionally trained bus operator.

My whole effort was to behave professionally and as a gentleman, but I had not owned the price I was paying to make it through probation. In reality I put much stress upon myself in addition to employer supplied threats and requirements. My behavior had its price. I suffered an anxiety attack shortly after the termination which presented itself as a heart attack.

The good news is that I turned to God for support in dealing with the anxiety and the job loss. I was the beneficiary of prayers for me and my loving family provided some self-employment income to me and gifted gas money to help with the transition.

The reason I'm sharing this episode of my life with my readers is that I'm grateful that God took me out of a situation in which I could not succeed and put me into a better situation (but this better situation is a story for another day). I have always believed that for an ethical employee God is the real employer and God alone provides us with our daily bread.